Ebony S. Muhammad (EM): So, tell me a little about how you got started in film and entertainment. You know, a lot of people say “I sold everything and I went to LA with $150.00 dollars and a prayer”, you know what I mean? So, how did you start?
TC Carson (TC): I actually started doing acting in grade school. Acting and dance in grade school. When I went to high school, I performed African American Theater, we were called the Black Thespians of Argo, and from there I went to college. I studied Architect and Interior Design in college, but I also sang and danced and did a lot of acting in college too.
When I got home to Chicago, after college, I started doing straight theater and still singing with a couple of jazz bands, but I did a lot of theater. From there, I started auditioning for television stuff like film work and commercials. I did my first television movie in Chicago; we won an Emmy for that. From there, I auditioned for my first series, which was called Key West, and I did that series with Jennifer Tilly and Fisher Stevens. It was really fun down in Key West. I was there for almost a year.
Then, came home, did more theater, more commercial work, and then I auditioned for Living Single and got it and moved back to LA for that.
EM: Yes sir. With the cast of Living Single, in regards to the chemistry and having the right people…Was it already there or did you all have to grow into that?
TC: It was really interesting. They casted our show really well, because when everybody finally met and got together, we were friends. We were friends and it felt like it was going to be fun. We had a good time.
EM: With the many roles that you’ve played and the appearances that you’ve made, how do you set your standards for what you will accept and what you won’t accept in a role?
TC: Well, sometimes it’s kind of hard, because what’s written for us is not always the best light for us. Yet, I always feel that what’s for you doesn’t get by you so. If I don’t want to play the drug dealer or the wife beater then that’s somebody else’s gig, and I’m not coming down on them because it’s a story. It’s just a story, but sometimes I just don’t want to do that kind of stuff. I don’t want to be the bad. I don’t want to be the ugly.
EM: And speaking of, because the readers, as I was saying to you before, we only know you for the roles that you have played on television and in movies and music, but who is T C Carson?
TC: T C Carson is a nice brother. Very loyal, a good friend, a hard worker. Yea, a nice brother.
EM: And you are from Chicago…
TC: That’s right. Chi Town….
EM: Of course, as you know, our headquarters for the Nation Of Islam is in Chicago, so I go back and forth to do interviews. Beforehand, I was only there to go to Saviors’ Day, which is in February; the time of year when it’s snowing and it’s cold. That kind of cold you can’t be cute in it. (Laughter) And when I went in April and May, I fell in love with it because of the weather. It was so beautiful.
TC: Summertime. Chicago bursts open in the summertime. As soon as the weather gets a little warm, everybody is out in the street or on the beach. They’re running in the parks. It’s a great city in the summertime. If you have some place to go in the wintertime, go somewhere else.
EM: What was it like growing up in Chicago? What part of Chicago are you from?
TC: We lived on the Southwest side in some projects called La Claire Courts, and my mom was a single mom. So, it was just her and I and I had relatives that lived there. My aunt lived one way down the street, and another aunt lived the other way down the street. So, I kind of grew up with my cousins. Growing up in the projects, at that time, wasn’t bad for me. They weren’t the high rises, they were what they called low rises, only two stories tall. And, it was basically like a townhouse, we had upstairs and downstairs. So I never got that whole “Come from the projects” thing. I never got all of that because where we lived was nice.
EM: You’re just making me think of the recent events that have taken place in Chicago, with the youth. They are being killed by violence at an alarming rate. Common, who was recently featured in Rolling Out magazine, mentioned that it was about 500 deaths, youth that were murdered this year and how it’s just escalating. He talked about the gang violence and about some of the senseless murders that take place. Is that something that you were privy to, growing up in Chicago?
TC: You know, I’m a little older than people may think, so they weren’t killing people like that when I was growing up. They were beating people up. The gangs were fighting but they weren’t shooting. Every once in a while, you would hear shooting out there but it wasn’t like today where there’s no argument. You know, it’s, “I’m mad at you, I’m gonna shoot you”. The kids, that’s the way they look at it nowadays and it’s sad. It really is sad because they are getting shot over nothing, over senseless things.
EM: Such as video games…….Nonsense
TC: Yea. Or you stepped on my shoes and stuff like that…..it’s crazy.
EM: I was looking at another report CNN about a young brother in Florida who had a two year old son that he punched, with boxing gloves, for fifteen minutes because he was acting like a girl….
TC: Did he kill him?
EM: He’s brain dead.
TC: First of all, why would you punch a two year old? He’s a two year old. He’s a two year old and if he’s a little feminine, if that’s who he is, then that’s who he is. Love him anyway and if you want him to be something else, show him something else.
EM: Right, yes sir. We have a different breed of parents, if you will…that may not be fit to be parents.
TC: I think we’re paying for babies having babies. When I was growing up, you had all these young teenage mothers. When you talk to young kids today and their grandmother is forty years old, their great grandmother is forty-five / fifty. So, you have these generations of young people raising kids and they weren’t really taught how to raise children.
EM: General life skills…..
TC: Because they didn’t know it…..they didn’t know it. So, I think we are paying for that right now. I think us, as a society, especially the black society… I think we are paying for that right now. It can be changed. We just have to get a hold of it and start teaching our young people how to parent.
EM: Exactly. So, with all that being said, how do you……..even developing as an entertainer, whether it be acting or in music or in general, how do you maintain balance? There is so much negative influences and pull, especially in entertainment. How do maintain that balance from where you began all the way to where you are right now?
TC: It’s not easy sometimes and everybody falls to the way side every once in a while, but it’s like can you get up? Can you pick yourself up and get back where you are supposed to be? And I think friends and family help that. Friends and family keep you grounded, and when you’re out on the ledge they go “Hey! What are you doing? Come back off the ledge a little bit.” You always have to have people in your life that will tell you the truth, no matter what. I have great people in my life like that.
EM: Okay. Does spirituality play a part in that as well for you?
TC: Oh yes. Now, religion, to me, is kind of man made, but God and spirit is universal so that’s the way I run my life. I run my life by spirit. I treat people that way I want to be treated. I walk this life the way I want people to see me and it’s not fake or phony. It’s who I am. Like I said, I don’t do religion but I pray. I meditate. I keep myself grounded that way.
EM: Yes sir. You know, a lot of people don’t know that there is a difference between being religious and being spiritual.
TC: Oh. Big difference. BIG Difference. Religion builds mega churches.
EM: That can take over……we had the Compaq Center in Houston, which is where NBA basketball games took place and now it’s a church.
TC: With more than one service a day…….
EM: Yes…
TC: But it shows you, people really need some type of spiritual guidance. They’re looking for it. Anytime you can fill up a 40,000 seat church, twice on a Sunday, people are looking for something.
EM: Yes sir. And I think, what you were saying in terms of us paying for certain trends….the things that are happening right now and things that are being revealed to us right is encouraging people to look for that….seeking refuge, if you will. There is a need for some type of spiritual foundation, because Lord knows, we need prayer, we need have services right here in the street and in churches……
TC: We need…….period. We need.
EM: How important is it for you, as a black man, to encourage other black males to have their own business ventures? To go and find their own creativity to see who they are. To pull out from deep inside as opposed to sitting in a “box” or to say …….“TC Carson, I’m a doctor” but that’s not who you are, that’s your occupation. How important is it for them to find out who they really are?
TC: I think it’s real important. You know, people tell kids you go to school, to get the job, to get the money. That’s the whole. You go to school, to get the job, to get the money as opposed to going to school, to learn what you really love to do and then that will bring you the money. So, I think it’s real important, for not only black men and black kids but everybody, young people in general. Figure out what your passion is, that’s what college is supposed to be for. Figure out what you really love to do and then figure out how to make money doing that because then you can go to work every day and it’s not work. You are going to do what you love to do so it’s not work. You’re not stuck in the job. I know so many doctors, friends of mine, who went to school with me; doctors, lawyers…..they live for vacation. They cannot wait to get on their vacation. I feel really blessed that I do something that I really enjoy doing and I get paid for it. So, that’s what I would tell young people today. Figure out what it is you want to do and then go and study that and make your money doing it.
EM: You know, you are striking a chord with me, because some of my family and even some of my friends are like “Ebony, do you sleep?” Me…I want to have multiple streams of income……..
TC: Residual income…..
EM: Yes sir….
TC: Multiple streams of residual income……You gotta say it right. The spirit hears you. You gotta say it right.
EM: Yes sir. And, I guess it’s because I’m a sensitive person and maybe it was the way I was designed to be, but every single one of those elements are in healing. I’m getting my license as a massage therapist, and I have this magazine that’s geared towards helping people to find themselves in these stories and to get from those stories something that can heal them. I’m also a Thanatologist, so I have counseling sessions. So, as you said, it doesn’t feel like work when you’re doing what you love. I completely agree with you that it’s our mindset. I hear some young boys say they want to go to the NBA so they can make money, like that’s the only way out. Like you can’t be something else except play sports or be a rapper….
TC: But, when you think about it, look at the images that they see. Look at the black men that they see in the news and on televisions all the time. They don’t see the doctors and the lawyers and the teachers. They don’t see that. They see the basketball players, the football players, the singers and the rappers. That’s what they see, and when you come from a culture that That Box {television} is so important. That Box is on all day long. I mean, I grew up like that. When I go home, I turn the TV on first. When I walk in the door, because I grew up by myself and so it’s people in the house to me. It’s voices and noise in the house. And, I didn’t get that until a few years ago. I was like “Wow”; I turn the television automatically when I get up in the morning. It’s Click. When I get home, it’s Click…..I forgot what I was saying now. Oh, we were talking about young men…..
EM: Images……
TC: Okay. It’s just when that’s what they see all the time, it’s hard for them to see themselves being anything else. I grew up in a time when black people were doing a lot of things that were visible. You don’t see us as much and I grew up in a era where education was more important. It was a way to get out of the ghetto. It wasn’t just so you could get the scholarship to go play ball. It was like, you learn a trade and you learn how to do something and you get here. Trade schools….and that’s the other thing, trade schools are gone so all the kids that don’t really fit into the college mold, they don’t have that venue anymore. I mean, you have things like ITT and those kinds of technical institutes for drafting and things like that, but what about the other kids. So, it’s harder today for kids who aren’t really college material to figure out what they want to do and to find a venue for them.
EM: You know, that is why I got into massage therapy, because I wanted to have something that resembled a trade skill so when this world falls…..I’ll be in control of my career, and there are a lot of stressed out people in this world who need a massage (laughing). I’ll be working for myself.
TC: And you’re still healing because massage therapy is really healing. Yea.
EM: Exactly. Another woman I was interviewing, she grew up in the 50’s and when she was in elementary and middle school, they has home economics and sewing and cooking and things like that. How to take care of children……… Things that we need nowadays….
TC: That young women don’t learn today……When they started cutting the budgets for schools, all that stuff started going to the wayside. Music, dance, theater, home ec, shop….all of those thing went left, because they couldn’t afford them. Just thinking about that right now, to have somebody open up a school that did that. Where like for summer school, the young people could come and go to this school and they could do Home Ec. They could do music, they could do theater, they could do shop…..they could do all those things. Just a separate school away from regular school.
EM: They’re continuing education though so their minds aren’t idle.
TC: Exactly.
EM: Being in the spotlight for as long as you’ve been, when you have paparazzi and tabloids, when you have rumors circulating, and when you have people who are not really for you or for your success… How do you manage that? How do you combat that? I know you said having family and having good people around you helps but when it’s just you traveling, like now how do you balance that out?
TC: In the beginning, it was really hard. I’m a really private person and I never thought about fame. It was always about I’ll do good work and I’ll get a better job. If I keep doing good work, I’ll keep getting better jobs and be able to do what I love to do. Then, I got on the show and it was like ‘Oh….Fame” and it took me a long time to be able to handle people coming up, talking to me and asking me questions.
EM: Like me? (Laughter)
TC: No. No, not like you. And trust me, I’m good now. I’m good. I’m okay now. But, in the beginning, I remember the first year of Living Single for me, it was hard for me to go out. And so, I was out shopping for Christmas and I was in the mall and I had on a big coat and my hat was pulled down and I saw myself in one of the shop windows. I was walking hunched over and I was like, “Aww dude. You gotta fix this.” So, I took the jacket off, took the hat off and you just deal with it.
I put it in a place where, people come up to you because they enjoy what you do, which is healing. Laughter is healing. So, if people enjoy what you do, you have to be okay with that and accept that, and once I put it in that place, it became a lot easier to deal with. Like, I’m here for this weekend. This weekend is about paparazzi and people and meeting and greeting people so when you know that’s what you’re going into, it’s okay. When I don’t feel like being bothered I stay in my house.
I stay at home. So, I look at the industry today and “celebrity” used to mean something. Celebrity used to mean that you actually did something that was great and people enjoyed it. You actually had a skill. Today, you can be a celebrity, because you punched somebody in the mouth. Today, you can be a celebrity, because you got tired of the people on the plane and you pulled over and got off the plane.
EM: or you crashed the President’s party…
TC: You can be a celebrity. You don’t really have to have a talent to be a celebrity today. So, when young people look at celebrity and trying to make the money and all of that, they’re not looking at skills that they can have and develop to make that happen. They’re looking at, how can I run out here and do what the people on Jersey Shore did or do what the people on one of these reality shows did so I can get some money and be on TV.
EM: Aww, those reality shows
TC: Well, what’s happening right now is they know people are tired of it so, this season, scripted dramas and comedies are coming back to television. To me, reality TV is all about pain and suffering. Its highs and lows. Either you are really happy or you cussing somebody out and crying. There’s no middle ground in it.
EM: With alcohol somewhere in between……..
TC: Somewhere…….alcohol, sex and drugs. Somewhere all up in there and people are tired of it. They’re really tired of seeing people at their worst.
EM: And you know, you touched on this a little bit. Television show, especially ones like Living Single, which was one of my favorites, gives us a way to escape without jeopardizing our own sanity.
TC: And you could see US.
EM: Exactly.
TC: You could see us on TV and there were situations that touched our hearts and our homes. When you look at television today, you don’t see us. You see one or two in each one of these shows but you don’t see US. So, I’m hoping that in this next season, or at least in the next couple of years, they will start to bring US back to T.V. But, again, it’s not on them. It’s not on them. I look at Latino and others not from this country. They’ve come here and they’ve got television stations and dramas and sitcoms and game shows and all of this stuff on TV. We’ve got one station, maybe two stations and one of them isn’t even ours anymore, BET. We had BET and TV1. I mean, come on. And look at how much money black people make in this country and that’s all we have to show? Come on.
EM: You just reminded me, and I can’t remember the exact number but it was in the millions, in regards to the revenue that we bring into our communities, but it’s not to our people. For instance, the beauty supply stores and the liquor stores and you have basketball games…..Look at how much money we have, in a year. Like you said, if we just put those resources together and open up schools for those things aside from the academic or we open up our own television studios and music studios. We could open up our own distribution for our music, because I that’s where we lose a lot of money, in music, in distribution. Yet, it was just amazing to see how many millions of dollars we have collectively, but we don’t have anything to show for it.
TC: I tell people all the time. I mean, I understand integration and I understand it was necessary. It just wasn’t good for our community. It just was not good for us. Don’t get me wrong, I love everybody. Black, white, whatever you are, as long as you are good people, I’m cool. But, I see what it did to OUR community. I see what it did to US, as a people.
EM: Especially with education…….
TC: With education. We used to have doctors and lawyers and all these people in our community, but, as soon as they said you can go over there, and we had been taught that that was better, we went over there. We need to come back to our community. I’m doing a home show. I went to school for architecture and design so it’s coming full circle because I’m able to use that as well as the television stuff to create my own show and it’s for people who live in the cities and it’s about neighborhood and reconnecting to your neighborhood.
We’ll come into your neighborhood. It’s a matching budget show. You write in, tell us what you want to do and how much money you want to spend, between $250 and $1000. So, we match that and between $500 and $2000 we’ll do this room but at $250 increments, we’ll show you what you can get. So, everybody who watches the show, you can leave the show and go and do something in your house. Because people don’t realize that how you live in your space directly affects how you function outside that door and it doesn’t take a lot of money to fix that so you can function better outside that door.
That’s what my show it about. Reconnecting to your neighborhood. So, instead of going to the big box store, you go to the thrift store down the street. Then, you take that chair and go over to the seamstress or the upholsterer that’s in your neighborhood. So, that’s what we’re trying to do. Get people to reinvest in their neighborhoods again.
EM: And that’s one thing that I think that we really need to learn how to do especially with one another, network. We have to trust one another in order to network.
TC: Well, we’ve been burned so much by each other. I have too but you can’t let that stop you from continuing to try to work with one another. You just have to be a little more cautious next time and ask better questions because if you ask better questions, you’ll find out, whether or not you stay there.
EM: You know what…..Oh, I remembered the question.
TC: Coffee kicked in, huh? (Laughing)
EM: Yea, it did (Laughing). We were talking about education. Having more than just basketball and music to pull from to get “out of the hood”, as they say, or to be successful. I was at an educational conference last weekend. I interviewed a mathematician, Shahid Muhammad also known as the Math Doctor, and he makes math so easy. In his workshop, he said name five basketball players. Everybody could do that. Then, he asked for five rappers. Then, he asked us to name five mathematicians……
TC: Duh…..
EM: Yep
TC: Or five scientists……
EM: Exactly. And he listed about ten or twenty, and they were all Black. He put up a picture of this brother who was pointing at a chalkboard or something and he asked, “Who is this man?” and no one knew. He said, “This brother, right here, invented the Internet. I’m surprised you don’t know who he is, as a Black man.”
TC: And we don’t know. Our kids don’t know what we do.
EM: As much as we are on the Internet, as much as we are so engage in social media and technology, we don’t know that it came from Us. We don’t know that this is the potential that we have. The important thing is to know that the potential is in us, and like you said, seeing more of ourselves doing these great things would help to pull that out.
TC: Again, we look at what’s shown. We can’t keep blaming white people.
EM: Not anymore.
TC: Yea and they’ve done what they’ve done and we’ve gotten past that part. But, now we’re doing what we’re doing and we’re not doing better. We’re not doing better. I mean, slavery really did a number on our culture. It really did. Even today, we’re still feeling the effects of slavery. And it’s not them doing it to us, it’s us doing it to us.
EM: And that is really the heart wrenching part. Have you ever read The Willie Lynch Letter: Making Of A Slave, and how he states that in 300 years it will be spinning on its axis……
TC: If you do this….. If you do this right….you won’t have to worry about it.
EM: Just like that…and it‘s just…it‘s exactly what‘s happening. Minister Farrakhan has us studying Dianetics, and one of the things that I pulled from the course is that pain is not necessarily memories, but it’s on a cellular level; it’s recording. So, when you say that slavery is still affecting us, I see the science behind that on a cellular level. It’s still physically present through our blood cells. If you remember, even in Willie Lynch, they talked about how they would bring a slave woman and her child or a slave women who was pregnant and make them watch another slave be brutally murdered, so that that fear and adrenaline would go through them.
TC: So, that when they saw you the next time, that body memory kicks in and you see the white man and automatically, you get scared.
EM: Exactly…and it’s still going on today. It’s still here and it’s on a physical level. And we have to be aware of that, and be able to correct it. However, some of us are still in denial.
TC: And a lot of people don’t think about that. They don’t think about history.
EM: Because they aren’t teaching it like that…
TC: We’re not teaching it like that. We’re not ….again, we go back to babies having babies. So, if you don’t have that foundation, like, before me, grandparents talked to their kids….kids talked to grandparents and they got the history. When I grew up, as I was growing up, I got a little bit of history. I’m getting more history now that my mother is 77 years old than I ever got when I was growing up. I’m finding out where my family came from, where my people were raised and all these great stories.
But, when you have young people having kids, and you’re seventeen and you just had a baby, you still trying to run around and figure who you are. Mommy’s at home, grandma’s at home with the baby, you out trying to figure out who you are and that kid is not getting that sense of history. Then, she has a baby and she doesn’t have anything to give to her. So, it’s a vicious cycle right now and until we, as a people, realize that we can stop it, and stop looking for another race or another kind of people to fix it for us. We’ll never get out of this until we figure it out and slowly, its happening.
EM: You are absolutely right.
You know, Tavis Smiley has the State of the Black Union every year and they were talking about their expectations for President Barack Obama and who’s going to fight for us and who’s going to do this for us. Some of the attendees recognized that we have so many people in politics, and we have so many entertainers that are conscious. We have people who have that kind of influence. We have a community that is fed up with what’s going on and we can change that.
TC: So, why aren’t we changing it?
EM: Because, like you said, we’re still waiting on people on the outside to do that. Minister Farrakhan, organized and executed the Million Man March……
TC: I was there. I think it’s one of the highlights of my life……to be there. And I was on the mall like 3,4,5 o’clock in the morning and there were guys out there, but it was still dark outside. As the sun was coming up, you could see the brothers just filtering in and kids were in the trees. I’m getting goose bumps now thinking about it. It was just a-mazing. And, I only could come that day, I got in the night before.
I spent the day, and I had to leave that night. I couldn’t stay the night, because I was working and to be in the airport lounge and it’s on TV and the hear the comments, to hear the white people talking….it was really interesting.
I was so proud of my brothers, because not only did we have a peaceful and meaningful celebration, we cleaned up afterwards. We can do better. We just need the call of arms. I look at Barack, and I’m so glad he’s president but I don’t pin everything on him. That man came into a deficit. He came in at one of the worse times that we’ve ever had in this country and he can only do so much.
EM: And, I think we put a lot on him, because he’s a Black man and we want him to be our superhero…
TC: And he can’t be. He could have been had he come in like Kennedy came in or like Clinton came in when everything was kind of cool, but he came in when Bush had just raped this country. So, he can only do so much and I’m proud of him, that he’s doing what he can do.
EM: and his wife……
TC: Beautiful….I look and see them in the White House and it just makes me smile. It makes me smile all the time. Again, he can only do so much and he’s doing the best he can with what he’s got to work with and we can’t ask for anything more than that. You know, you really can’t.
EM: Even after the Million Man March, the Million Family March, the Millions More Movement- we have a National Agenda that outlines education, politics, healthcare, all of those issues that we’re talking about right now. It’s outlined, on how we can make that change. I was getting frustrated while watching the State of the Black Union, because people are looking for somebody outside of Us to do it. Minister Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam have the National Agenda, the answer to our ails. They are talking about it, which is a start, but the meetings about the meeting need to stop. There needs to be some action.
TC: What people don’t realize is that for this to really happen, it’s not going to be this person at the head of this big movement. It’s when people realize that they can do this at home. They can do this with their family. They can figure out how to push their family forward better with this agenda and it’s going to happen there, and then it’s going to spread out. But, I think people in this country are looking for that person to galvanize it. They’re looking for that person to lead it and it’s an individual thing. We have to be our own leaders and make this happen.
EM: It’s almost like they’re looking for God……
TC: Yea….well, Mega churches…people are looking, people are searching right now….
EM: And I think we fail to see that potential in ourselves. The Holy Quran and even the Bible talks about struggle and how the prophets and the messengers struggled. That something had to be brought out of them in order for them to do the job that they had to do, which was a hard job to lead people into the light. I think that if we solve that in ourselves, it would be less difficult. I think we make things harder on ourselves that they have to be, because we resist and we’re afraid.
TC: Well, again, we go back to religion. Religion teaches you to be afraid. It teaches you to be scared and, I’m sorry, my God, He’s not trying to beat you down. He’s trying to help you and push you forward and make you a better person and make you walk on this earth better. That’s how I look at it. That’s why I can’t do church.
EM: You mentioned from slavery that’s how they kept us as slaves, through their religion and through invoking fear…
TC: Don’t get me started…..Don’t get me started on THAT part of it……
EM: I have a couple more questions. Earlier I talked about the paparazzi, the tabloids and you are a private person. What misconceptions do you believe are out there about you or about entertainers? Let’s start with you first, that you would like to clear up?
TC: It’s interesting. Early on, people were saying things about me that I didn’t particularly care for so I just don’t listen to it. I don’t read it, I don’t buy into it because I realized that you don’t know me. This country is built on rumor and tabloid, all of that and I’ve worked real hard to keep my friends and family out of that part of my life. They didn’t sign up for that.
So, I can talk to you about me but I’m not discussing them. That’s their business. I take my mom out to places, but I tell her that you can’t get on the phone and talk to people. Like when Livin’ Large came out, somebody called her for an interview and she was just so happy that the paper had called her.
EM: They called and interviewed you mom?
TC: Yes! So, I told her, make that your last interview. No more interviews. You can’t do that anymore. I’m glad you had a good time. I’m glad it was fun but no more. Because, you know, they trick people. It’s not about this kind of journalism. It’s about what can you find out, and I just try to keep my friends and family out of it and I deal with it when I feel like dealing with it. Like I said, when I don’t want to be bothered, I stay at home.
EM: You made me think about some of the interviews….I saw, recently where they bring people on and it just looks like a straight set up. Like they came on and this was the title but then they had some subtitles underneath that.
TC: On what show?
EM: Fox. I remember there were a couple of things on Fox that I saw, and I was like “Dang, brother. You didn’t see that coming?”
TC: But you didn’t get up and leave when they started. You don’t have to stay there.
EM: That’s the thing, being able to say, “I no longer want to entertain this conversation, I think it’s time for us to wrap this up.” Like you said, “I didn’t sign on for this.” I see that quite often, and I don’t know whether they just want to clear things up because they feel like they need to defend themselves.
TC: Don’t let them see you sweat. Never let them see you sweat. Say, “I’m not going to answer that question. What else you got? I’m not talking about that. Let’s move on.” Now, if they keep on pushing it then get on up out of there.
EM: I see sometimes how they do try to, especially with certain entertainers, if they’ve got something private going on in their lives, they want to get a rise out of them on TV.
TC: That’s what the media……it’s what the entertainment media is right now. It’s all about pain and suffering.
It’s not about pushing you or helping pushing your cause. They can do that but they’d rather stick you over here. I know you got something going on, come on and do an interview on our show. That happened to me once.
I did Geraldo. Livin’ Large had come out and it was myself, the director and the girl who played my love interest, Lisa Erandale. We were talking about the show and all of a sudden the questions switched to white men and how do you feel and so forth. I was getting a little heated so Michael just tapped me and I sat back and from then point my answer was “No. I don’t have any comment on that.” Because, I saw what it was going to be and I saw myself giving them that.
That was the first and last time that I let myself be put in a situation where I didn’t really know what was going on. But, that’s what media is today. It’s all about finding out your secrets and everybody has secrets but that’s your private life, that’s why they call it private.
I feel, in this business, people pay for what they get when they see me on screen, when they see me on stage….that’s what you pay for. What happens in my house, you don’t pay for that. Actors and musicians and celebrities have used their personal lives to push their agenda.
That’s why you see Brad and Angie on all the tabloids with the babies, but have you seen Sandra Bullock since that big thing happened with her and her husband?
EM: No sir.
TC: See. You can keep your life private. Look at Denzel. You don’t see too much about him at all. Look at Samuel Jackson. You don’t see too much about their private life at all. It’s all about how you present yourself.
EM: That was something that I asked Kim [Fields] about. I didn’t know about her arrest during a protest against police brutality. I was like “What? When did that happen?” I commend you all for being able to do that, because it’s almost as if it’s impossible. Yet, I think from what you’re saying that people put themselves, willingly and sometimes unwillingly, in those positions.
TC: You let your publicist do that. I don’t do that. I’m not trying to go to all those places that I know TMZ and the paparazzi are going to be. Why would I go there? If I’m trying to be seen, then yea, but if I’m just trying to have my life, why would I go there when I know you all are camped outside? Why would I do that?
EM: As a publisher for a magazine I take photos during events, and it makes me cringe when I think of how people make their living off of gossip and how they stalk people.
TC: Look at TMZ. It’s nothing but gossip.
EM: I’m thinking, “How do you really feel on the inside knowing this is how you are making your living?”
TC: They ‘re not feeling anything because they are getting paid. They’re not giving a second thought about it……until the world stops wanting to hear it…..
Again, until we get our own stations (media), then we’re still asking somebody else that doesn’t have a vested interest in telling our stories, to tell our stories. Until we have that kind of control….and Oprah is starting her network…so, we’re slowly figuring it out. But, until we have 5-6-7 channels on that are dealing with black people and our issues and our programming, it’s not going to happen like we want it to happen. We’re going to get what we get and the powers that be look at dollars and Tyler’s (Perry) making a lot of money, for him and for them. So, we just need somebody to say okay, he did that. How can I do it in a different way and give them something different. That’s all it is.
I wasn’t necessarily a fan of Tyler Perry, at first, but then I went to see Madea. I went to the theater and the Kodak Theater, on a Tuesday night, was packed. Black folks. I went out and got a drink and just kind of overheard conversations and they were having a ball. They were enjoying themselves, they saw themselves onstage….so I said you can’t come against this man. He’s filling up the Kodak Theater. I applaud Tyler Perry and what he’s done for us.
EM: You know, he’s been getting attacked lately…
TC: I know. That’s the other thing that we do. Look at this man. Okay, it may not be your cup of tea. It may not be what you want to see, but you can’t tell me that you don’t know Madea. You can’t tell me you don’t know her. You can’t tell me you don’t know those people onstage. So, I rest my case….. (Laughter)
EM: Thank you so much for your time and for sharing your thoughts, I’ve really enjoyed this interview.
TC: You are very welcome.
